All posts tagged ‘TableTop’

A lot of games can be played equally well by any group of players assuming they have an understanding of the rules; Settlers of Catan would fall into this category as would Ticket to Ride and party games like Jungle Speed. However the enjoyment of another category of games depends almost entirely on the people sat around the table; role playing games like Dragon Age and D&D as well as games like Munchkin and Say Anything. Dixit is one of these games, whether you consider it the best game you’ve ever played or immediately relegate it to the pile of “games we never bother getting out” is going to depend almost entirely on who you play with.

On first impressions Dixit is an odd game. The board tokens are inexplicably wooden rabbits, the board itself is a simple score track printed inside the box, and the cards, well the cards are just plain surreal. For those unfamiliar with it, Dixit is a highly creative game using illustrated cards. The player whose turn it is (the storyteller) chooses a card from his hand and says something about it before placing it face down on the table, this can be anything from a single word to a phrase, song lyric, quotation, someone’s name or the title of a painting/film/book/etc. — absolutely anything. The other players then choose a card (or cards) from their own hands that they feel match this statement and add them to the first card. All are shuffled and each player except the storyteller votes for the card they believe was the storyteller’s card. The storyteller then reveals their card. If everyone or no one has found it, then the storyteller receives zero points and everyone else receives two. In other cases the storyteller and the players who identified the correct card all score three. The trick therefore is to create a clue than is neither too obvious nor too obscure, so that some players but not all correctly identify your card. The winner is the player furthest along the score track when the last card has been drawn.

I first brought it out at a games night with my husband and a complete newbie (it was his first night playing Ticket to Ride and Zombie Dice too) and the look of utter confusion on his face as he turned over his hand still has me laughing several weeks later whenever it pops unbidden into my head. After trying to explain the rules, giving up and launching into some rounds, everyone soon had the gist of the game down. We discovered fairly quickly that a thorough understand of the other players’ thought processes and some shared hobbies/tastes was a major bonus during play. Our friend played a card using the phrase “Andy Bell.” I had no idea at all who that was and ended up playing cards completely at random from my hand. My husband however instantly realized that this was a reference to an ex-member of the band Oasis who previously played in another band called Hurricane #1. As a result he was able to correctly guess our friend’s card, an image of a tornado*. A similar event occurred later as I correctly linked my husband’s clue “this way Arthur” to an image of a torch-bearing arm rising from water; our friend who has less knowledge of Arthurian legends was entirely baffled. As we played I did find myself wondering how this would impact a younger player, say an older tween or young teenager, playing with a group of adults, simply because they are likely to have less to draw on due to their age and relative lack of experiences.

I have really enjoyed playing Dixit once I got past the initial fear of having a mind-blank over all my cards and being unable to come up with any clues. We have been playing the three-player variant rules in which players hold seven cards rather than six and the two non-storyteller players during each round put down two cards instead of one; I often found myself holding on to certain cards for which I had a clue in mind for a later round. I can imagine that after several games regular players would become very familiar with the cards and players who often play together might begin to spot one another using the same clues. However a number of expansions and variant games are available to increase the number of cards, massively increasing the game’s replay potential.

Dixit is most certainly a game that inspires conversation as players discuss the reasons behind their clues and complain about those from the rest of the group, “How was anyone supposed to guess that card from that?” As a result I have found myself laughing more during Dixit than most other games we have played recently, except perhaps Shave a Sheep! I’m very much looking forward to getting a large group of like-minded people together soon for an epic game with a few drinks although I dread to think what kind of clues people will invent with a little alcohol thrown into the mix. Whether you’re playing a big party game with several players or just a small three-person game, Dixit is great; I just wish there were a way to play with only two players so I could enjoy it more often.

A copy of Dixit was provided free for this review.

*As I’m fairly sure my fellow GeekMom Patricia is horrified that we would mix up our weather system terminologies so terribly, I would like to reassure her that the difference between a hurricane and a tornado is duly noted but cast aside for the purposes of playing Dixit effectively.

I had the opportunity to play Fluxx at a friend’s house over summer and instantly fell in love with the madcap, zany game-play Since then I’ve been hoping for an iOS release so I can play at home when I don’t have others around me, and last week the game’s developers Looney Labs in partnership with Playdek finally came through.

Regular gamers will know that there are dozens of different versions of Fluxx available as card games; the iOS app is modeled on a Target exclusive deck released earlier this year. The keeper cards are a mixed bag of themes that include Rocket, Sleep, Milk, Pizza, and Party, and are designed to appeal to a mass audience — not everyone out there knows what a Cthulhu is after all. The game is designed very simply with bold, bright chunks of color on the menu screens — however I didn’t find the menu system very intuitive, the buttons just seem oddly placed and the whole thing feels clunky with some images even appearing pixelated.

I actually deleted the game off my iPhone within minutes as I found it impossible to play because the cards are too small to read. (Yes, you can enlarge them, but as you need to keep your finger on the card the whole time to keep it from dropping back into the deck, this is kinda tricky.) Large card hands are simply lined up at the bottom of the screen with just their titles visible so selecting the correct one is nigh-on impossible on the phone’s small screen — it’s even tricky on the iPad.

The game can only be played in portrait mode on both iPad and iPhone which seems counter-intuitive, as is the vast area at the top of screen given over to your opponent’s keepers whilst your hand is crammed down in a tiny space at the bottom. There are two game-play modes, online and offline, and naturally online play pits you against a random opponent logged in at the time. Offline offers two game-play modes: against another player in a pass-and-play style or to play against a bot. Sadly, this is where the game really began to fall down in my opinion. Continue Reading “Fluxx App Could Do Better” »

A few months ago we compared the iPad and physical board versions of the Days of Wonder classic, Small World. Today we’re going to do the same for another of the brand’s flagship games, Ticket to Ride. Originally launched in 2004, the game has become a best seller with multiple expansions available, including Asian, European and most recently African maps, as well as dice, card and Halloween expansions. So if you’re interested in playing the game which version would suit you best?

I first became aware of Small World by Days of Wonder through Wil Wheaton’s excellent webseries Table Top. Although from a newbie’s perspective it looked complicated (I’d never played anything more complex than Monopoly before) I wanted to give it a shot. I wasn’t sure whether the iPad or the table top version would be best, but I was luckily able to obtain a copy of each. My husband and I have spent the last few months playing both versions and becoming gradually more adept at playing; in fact my husband managed a twenty point round last week, while I’ve never beaten seventeen.

So which version is better? It really depends entirely on how you intend to play. Here’s my thoughts to help you decide.

July 29th is a wonderful day in the world of GeekMom. Not only did it give us the delightful Brigid Ashwood, it also gave us Wil Wheaton, star of Star Trek: The Next Generation and TableTop. In honor of Don’t Be a Dick Day, here are just a few of the reasons that we love Wil Wheaton:

The fact his boys are not biologically his own never stopped him from loving them like they share DNA. He did a really awesome thing when he rode a Unicorn Pegasus Kitten in Clash of the Geeks, raising a lot of money for lupus research. — GeekMom Jules

I loved having a geeky guy to have a crush on when I was a teenager and he was on Star Trek: The Next Generation. — GeekMom Jenny

I love Wil Wheaton because he sent a picture of himself collating papers to Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess), and because he filled Nathan Fillion’s pockets with twine and photobombed for her. He rocks! — GeekMom Sarah

My husband and I had discovered a year or so ago that he homebrews. And writes about his homebrewing. Sometimes. But what’s great about his homebrewing is that he elected to do this as a father-son activity. And just like when my husband homebrews, he delved into the serious gastronomy geekiness and recorded everything about his experiences: the ingredients, the prices, the weather, the flavors, and the many many many things he learned along the way (i.e., his miscalculations). — GeekMom Patricia

I love Wil Wheaton because he spent a solid three minutes talking to my 5-year-old daughter about her favorite Pokémon. I also love him for TableTop. — GeekMom Cathe